Device for heating large rooms



Nov 22, 1949 H. BORGHESAN 2,488,800

DEVICE FOR HEATING LARGE ROOMS Filed Jan. 3, 1946 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 r E f?) jv HHWHH HHHjlH 777w Fiy-l" Nov. 22, 1949 H. BORGHESAN DEVICE FOR HEATING LARGE ROOMS Filed Jan. 3, 1946 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 AUUWNEX Patented Nov. 22, 1949 DEVICE FOR HEATING LARGE ROOMS Henri Borghesan, Nice, France Application January 3, 1946, Serial No. 638,877 In France January 5, 1945 2 Claims.

It is known that the heating of spacious rooms such as the halls and workshops of modern factories, for example, involves serious difliculties. Many systems have been proposed for this heating but none of them has been able, up to the present, to give the workers the comfort which enables them to work with utmost efiiciency.

Among these systems, those which have given the best results, without attaining however the proposed goal, are the heating system by warm air blown into the room to be heated at the height of a man and withdrawal of the cold air at floor level, and the system which consists in heating the floor by means of heating panels constituting the whole or a part of the floor of the workshop. The first of these systems efiectively heats the upper part of the workers body, but his feet and legs remain cold. Furthermore, a considerable part of the heat is lost under the roof, without any advantage for the occupant. With the second of the above mentioned systems, the

'workers feet and body are warm and the heat is distributed to points where it is the most needed, resulting in much better conditions of comfort and hygiene than those provided by other systems. It has however been noticed that in very cold weather the convection currents attain such proportions that the air which has been cooled while descending along the walls, from the higher to the lower parts of the workshop, reach the persons who are located therein. This fact causes considerable discomfort. Furthermore, if the heating panels cover only a part of the floor, movements of cold air coming from the roof and from the walls are caused between the unheated places and the roof. Under these conditions, it is undesirable to stay in any part of the workshop.

This invention avoids the mentioned drawbacks by means of a particular combination of the heating system by blown warm air and the floor heating system.

It consists substantially in a plant comprising at the same time one or more warm air blowing devices above the occupants of the rooms to be heated and floor heating panels, combined with means for putting the first named devices into action only in case of very cold weather, so that the air blown by these devices forms a protective screen preventing the fall of cold air.

An embodiment of the invention may further be characterized by the use of one or more devices comprising on the one hand a lower air intake opening, a Ventilator driving the air through a heater connected to an upper chamber having blowing openings on one or several sides and, on the other hand, a circulation pump having an intake fitting and driving a liquid through a heat exchanger the other end of which is connected to another fitting, these two fittings allowing the device to be connected to the head panel of the floor heating panel system, the air heater and the heat exchanger being provided with means for connection to a heating liquid distributing system, manually or thermostatically controlled valves being interposed. A motor drives the ventilator and pump, together or separately, by means of clutches.

Figs. 1 and 2 show schematically the operation of heating plant according to this invention, two main arrangements being illustrated.

P are the floor heating panels and S is an air blowing device for hot air. It may be seen that the blown air forms a protective layer E which arrests the current of cold air C descending from the roof, along the walls of the workshop.

Fig. 3 is a schematical vertical section of a combined device which may be used in a preferred embodiment of the plant according to the invention.

Fig. 4 is an external perspective view of the same device, in a slightly different embodiment.

l is a body of sheet metal of a convenient form, 2 is a centrifugal or helical ventilator, 3 is an electric motor driving the ventilator, 4 is a clutch for connecting and disconnecting the ventilator and motor, 5 is an air heater through which the ventilator drives the air, and 6 is an upper chamber provided with blowing openings 1 on one or several sides.

On the other hand, 8 is a pump driven by the motor 3 through a clutch 4 and the intake of which can be connected by a pipe and fitting 9 to the outflow of a head panel P feeding all the floor heating panels. This pump drives its contents into a heat exchanger I 0 the outflow of which can be connected, by a tube and fitting II, to the intake of the said panel P I2 is an expansion receiver.

A distributing system [3 feeds the heating fluid (electricity, hot water, steam, etc.) to the heater 5 and exchanger l0, through valves [4 and I 5 respectively, controlled by hand or by thermostats Th, Th.

The device operates as follows:

When the outer temperature is moderately cold, the heating fluid enters only through the valve l5 into the heat exchanger I0 where it heats the water of the panels P which circulates 3 under the action of the pump 8 working alone. In this case, the heating is thus effected only by the panels P.

When the external temperature descends below a predetermined value, causing the cold air currents in the heated rooms to descend, the valve H1 is opened by hand or by the thermostat Th and the ventilator 2 is started by throwing in the clutch t. From that moinent on, the warm air screens E arrests this downflow of cold air above the heads of the occupants who continue to be normally heated by the panels P.

The device shown in Figs. 3 and 4 is preferably designated so as to be easily dismountable and it will be possible to transport it in order to use it in different points where connections to the supply 53 and a head panel P are provided, the unused connections being closed and the fittings of the unused panels P being connected together by a pipe. It is of course possible to use several devices at the same time, at different points of the hall or workshop to be heated.

What I claim is:

l. A transportable heating unit for spacious rooms equipped with a heating fluid supply and with floor heating panels containing heating coils, comprising a lower air intake, an air heater, an upper chamber formed with at least one opening for the ejection of a horizontal screen of air just above a mans height, a ventilator driving air from said intake through said air heater into said upper chamber, a pump, a heat exchanger,

REFERENCES CITED The following references are of record in the file of this patent:

UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 1,333,870 Morley Mar. 16, 1920 1,803,505 MacLeod 1 May 5, 1931 2,175,758 Neubert Oct. 10, 1939 2,225,244 Anderson -1 Dec. 17, 1940 2,247,987 Carson July 1, 1941 2,382,340 Smith a. Aug. 14, 1945 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 212,604 Switzerland Mar. 17, 1941 363,370 Great Britain Dec. 10, 1931 

